There were lots of features that were not be possible to be done like regular mods, so I decided to put everything into one folder (English). It’s better than have to copy files to both folders (English and Mods)

FeaturesFixes1. Fixed unusable unit designs forgotten in v.1.5. (forgotten shields with one-handed weapons2. Fixed vanilla Scrap Golem having no weapon.3. Fixed problems of 1.5 patch with Wilding Hermit and Darkling shaman unable to summon lesser units.4. Fixed issue resulted in lightning attack of Lightning Longbow was not calculated as ranged attack.AI improvements1. AI trains more units;2. AI equips his units better;3. AI trains more elite and mounted troops;4. AI builds more fortresses to produce better troops;5. AI more often enchants his cities with unit enchanting spells;6. AI pays more attention to increase production rates in his cities;7. AI pays more attention to develop combat traits of his heroes;8. AI politics is more aggressive than in original;9. AI hunts for monsters and quests more often;10. Default AI races are more combat oriented;11. Traits that AI doesn’t use properly are changed or disabled;12. More units are available to AI to suit in every gameplay condition. Every of 11 races has:• 1 additional type of pioneers• 2 additional types of scouts (1 of them is mounted);• 2 additional types of clubsmen;• 2 additional types of spearmen;• 2 additional types of defenders;• 2 additional types of light warriors;• 2 additional types of medium warriors (1 of them is mounted);• 2 additional types of heavy warriors (all mounted versions);• 2 additional types of medium magic warriors (all mounted versions);• 2 additional types of heavy magic warriors (all mounted versions);• 2 additional types of horsemen (all mounted versions);• 5 additional types of archers (including mounted versions);• 5 additional types of crossbowmen (including mounted versions);• 5 additional types of mages (including mounted versions);• 3-5 (depending on race) additional types of zealots (including mounted versions).13. Also:• 9 additional types of henchmen for Altarians;• 3 additional types of golems for Ironneers;• 3 additional types of juggernauts for Trogs;• 1 additional type of each spider for the trait “Cult of hundred eyes”.Gameplay1. Good starting locations every new game. No need for Ctrl+N;2. Monetary economic model. All units require gold to train. All buildings require gold to build.3. If you train a unit, the number of its soldiers is subtracted from city’s population. (Thanks to Parrottmath!)4. Intensive combat. (Units gain more dodge, critical chances and some happy/unhappy battle events);5. More types of weapons and armors for unit design;6. Added traits to unit design: alchemist, guard and road building for every race;7. More chances to find armor and weapons in loot;8. Lower prices in shops. No need to rely on loot equipment for heroes;9. Added 24 premium heroes of 15 level;10. Added 18 Undead heroes;11. Garrison units reduce unrest and gain 1 experience per turn;12. Every trained unit requires gold and population to be trained;13. Every building requires gold to be built.14. Each weapon has its special strike.15. Each race has its unique set of weapons.16. Added unique city defenders. Some mages defend conclaves, some knights defend fortresses, some crossbowmen defend towns. Common defenders such as city militia and city archers remain too.17. Added medium fire and ice staffs. Earlier mages had to wait too long to get good staffs, so these medium staffs were added.18. Rebalanced quendar slaves to act more like cannon fodder rather than unlucky losers.19. At the start of the game all items that are available for training units are also available in the shop.20. Unrest doesn't increase with the number of cities. It increases while the city grows in levels. This is vital for gameplay on huge maps.21. Heroes don't divide experience.22. Enchanter specialty gives a full set of 3 lightning staffs with increasing lightning attack and they replace fire staffs. AI prefers to use lightning staffs over fire staffs if he has opportunity.23. Hero traits that are of low or even negative use for AI are changed or disabled.24. Thrown weapons now deal amount of damage equal to the number of soldiers in the group (Thanks to Parrottmath!)25. Staff class of weapons is expanded. Earlier there were just a staff and monk's staff with no possibility to upgrade. Now this possibility exists up to Arcane weapons.26. Added new class of troops - zealots. They fight with melee staffs.27. Added new racial trait "Monk Robes" (costs 0 to choose like Masterwork Chain) which replaces Leather armor with a set of robes. If you wish your light troops look like mages, or you prefer Dodge over Defence, this option is for you.28. Added hardened leather cuirass, light chainmail and some trait-specific weapons available to unit design. Now you have richer choice while designing your units. Perfect crossbow is rebalanced and added to Arcane weapons and thus available for unit design.29. I tried to make AI enchant his cities with more unit spells, such as Heart of Fire, Aura of Might. I set better priorities for these spells but still the best priority is with Enchanted Hammers spell. Then goes Heart of fire, Inspiration and the rest combat and city spells.30. 3 level city adds 1 essense. I hope this helps AI to enchant his cities with more unit spells.31. Units have 5 perk slots instead of 4.32. Quest for Arctic wolf cloak is replaced for IceWarg Cloak quest. Player has to fight wargs instead of wolfs, and gains IceWarg Cloak. In this world Arctic wolf cloaks are available in shops from the beginning of the game, so there was somehow rather useless to fight wolves in order to get an item of low interest.33. Added new racial trait “Guile”, which gives additional perk slot for training units.34. Added new racial trait “Manufacturer”, which gives additional production per material.35. “Wholesale Purchase” spell is added. In case player has excessive gold and doesn't need it, then for 1200 gildars it's possible buy 120 metals, 60 crystals, 10 horses and 10 wargs. Usage of this operation increases Fame by +10. This spell is unlocked by Economics technology.36. New tech City Enchantment was added. It unlocks Scrying pool, Guardian Statue and spells: Heart of Fire, Aura of Might, Aura of Grace, Aura of Vitality. Unlocking these spells allows to cast these spells early, not depending on types of recruited heroes and chosen magic schools. This thech was made especially for AI.37. New tech was added Advanced Warfare. It gives some bonuses that earlier belonged to War Colleges tech. At the same time War Colleges give some expensive books to upgrade heroes. This was done also in case if a player has excessive gold. There will never be too much gold, be sure.38. Updated economic model. Now player has to pay for every equipment and even traits of his trained units. Skilled and highly armed and armored troops should be more expensive. Tested how AI survives in new circumstances. AI is just brilliant!!!39. Added an option to choose Rusty Armor to replace common chainmail. By default Undead race wears rusty armor. This armor is available to unit design like Light Plate armor and has the same parameters, but looks great on undead.40. Added Gladiator armor to unit design. Player can choose it to replace Raider's chainmail. By default Tarthians have gladiator's armor. It's even written in its description, that Tarths wear gladiator's armor with pride.41. If you have DLC 02 installed, then while choosing Assasins tools you gain another design of leather armor. It looks like assasin's armor but has paramenters of common leather armor. So, welcome Urxens-ninjas.42. Catapults are much stronger now. Deadly machines.43. AI has higher value for the following priorities: upgrade heroes to Commander path and teach Leadership and Tactics, build more fortresses and enchant cities with spells that give combat bonuses to units. AI builds less conclaves and rarely builds towns.44. Summoned Skath and Spider mounts for trained troops.

To install the mod, first backup your English folder, then copy the downloaded files into it. If you don't have DLS's, delete appropriate DLS files. Optionally there is a mod in Mod folder, which allows you to play with limited resources.

Features:

1. Good starting locations every game. No need for Ctrl+N.

2. Better loot. Better prices in shops. No need to rely on loot equipment for heroes.

Please let me know what would you like to improve or to change, what features you don't like.

Detailed information:

1. CoreShards and CoreWorldResources - make good starting locations. In almost every start there is at least a 3/3/3 tile. No more than 3 essense per tile though, otherwise human players will build overenchanted units.

2. CoreWeapons, CoreArmor, CoreIems. More chances to find armor. Eclusive loot is not much greater than from shop, so don't expect to have overpowered heroes. All things are cheaper at shops.

CoreAIDefs - gives priority to War in AI development. AI dont like close and weak neighbours, but like tributes and far located kingdoms.

AIMilitaryStrategyTypes - all AIs become horselovers.

CoreImprovements - allows to build training yards in all types of cities. This is good for AI because it builds units everywhere.

CoreRaceTypes - all AIs likely to be expansionists and militarists.

CoreUnitStats - footmen move at 3 instead of 2. AI does build foot soldiers anyway, so it helps him. Combat battles are more intense. All units start with 20 Dodge and Accuracy doesn't grow rapidly. Units will miss more often. All units have a little chance to go crazy in battle: critical chance is 5 by default, there is also small chance to perform backswing, bash and even maul with any weapon. There is also 2% chance to do a clumsy blow. Battles are bloody and less predictable.

CoreMonsterUnitTypes - small monsters have +2 hit points.

Undead race have more and better troops. UndyingCurseDead - ability is deactivated, because it's a cheat to human player.

Bunny slippers and Giant lolipop deactivaded as silly jokes.

4. CoreUnits - garrison units reduce unrest and if a training yard is built, they receive +1 exp/turn. There are also few traits added for unit design: build roads, alchemist (-1gold, +1 mana) and guard (-1unrest in garrisoned city).

5. CoreUnits - all traits that requires special weapons were modified. AI may choose a trait, but don't have an appropriate weapon. Commanders and Defenders are now much useful. Commander can improve attack, and defender can improve defence, dodge and resistance. There are less common traits, so heroes have better opportunuty to focus on class-specific traits.

6. CoreWeapons - staffs have sweep, swords have blade rush, bows have rain of arrows. Other weapons already have special strikes. Crossbows can knock footmen prone. Crossbows are preloaded before battele and don't have initiative penalty on the first turn. 2handed weapons have +2 critical chance and +5 dodge. All shields protect from arrows.

Optionally

Additionally these is a file CoreWorldResources2 in Mods folder which reduces number or iron, crystal, horse, warg resources on the world map. Crystals and iron also can not be found on fertile lands. You'll have to build outposts to gain them.

If you tried this mod and have suggestions on how toboost AI please post here.

RaceConfig - all kingdoms have combat bonuses, such as quickly, lucky, tough, which are popular among human players. - does this mean all races have the 3 faction bonuses? i.e. so any enemy standard faction units will have them?

CoreRaceTypes - all AIs likely to be expansionists and militarists. - Curious if this will stunt variety. I'm not sure the factions have enough personality to really notice though, so it might be just fine.

CoreUnitStats - footmen move at 3 instead of 2. AI does build foot soldiers anyway, so it helps him. Combat battles are more intense. All units start with 20 Dodge and Accuracy doesn't grow rapidly. Units will miss more often. All units have a little chance to go crazy in battle: critical chance is 5 by default, there is also small chance to perform backswing, bash and even maul with any weapon. There is also 2% chance to do a clumsy blow. Battles are bloody and less predictable. - curious if the starting 20 dodge + dodge per level will get out of hand. Most of my trained units never get more than 4-5 levels, so probably not an issue. Seems a pretty big change.

Rest looks very interesting. I'm running 1.5 beta now - have you had a chance to look and see if it makes a big difference?

Also, there are 33 files in the included English folder - were all modified? Plus 1 in the core improvements folder.

Your mod looks nice but there is a problem with Logging Camps - although their code is similar to the one from Snaking it does not work here (I don't know why) so they cannot be built. After I changed it to the original one it works with Snaking as you probably intended without it (it does not work in your setting even with Snaking).

My mod writes with the actually logging camp and so doesn't actually need it from the mod folder, hence why my snaking mod doesn't actually include the forest part. Similar to the pier version as well.

I have not finished my first game using your mod yet but so far I like it.

The only thing I don´t like (which is not your fault I think) is that since I set AI difficulty to Hard and above (custom) they all start with a huge amount of just everything. Like 1k+ research, 1k+ metal and crystal. And by the time I´ve founded three cities and started to produce my first soldiers with leather (I usually pick the war branch once I´ve got my cities under control) the AIs are running around with several massive armies.

Any suggestions on how to negate that and what difficulty to pick? I do want a challenge but giving the AI so much starting resources is just ridiculous.

PS: I´m still not sure I like the +20 dodge as default. I usually like to have a assassin with a maul weapon but now that is not even an option (since the damage from each strike is low but the maul ability makes it good after several hits. Think I use a dagger with 9 attack which also deducts 1 def for each strike. But thats not an option anymore

Would this mod work together with "[eMOD] XtraSavageAI (#1 - #2 - #3) [11-22-2013] {v1.5}"? Sounds like this mod would solve the starting fund problem which I dislike...

Like all the other stuff you put in and I´m having a blast, probably because none of the other strong factions are at war with me since I´m paying them off

I've never used a mod for LH:FE before and I'm trying to decide between this mod and the "AI plus" mod. I'm sure they are both very good mods that improve the AI, so I guess I'd like to begin with which ever one makes less changes and is closer to vanilla.

I´m having more crashes now then before I installed this mod. So every 2-8 turns I have a crash where the game "hangs" and then has to be closed down.

If you look at some of the info I posted in pastebin it looks like it is missing some files, but since the game works just fine for several turns I don´t think that is the problem.

Maybe "[eMod] Patchwork mod - AI boost" could be a factor in this? I never used to have so much crashes before (not that I can recall). And it also takes longer for the AI to act between turns (waiting time). Could it be that the AI thinks more and longer (more calculations) and that somehow causes the crashes?

PS: The crashes are pretty much random so I just use a auto save and can continue, though I´ve had to set auto save to every turn just to be on the safe side. I´m having to much fun with this mod so I don´t want (or can´t) stop playing with it

I've never used a mod for LH:FE before and I'm trying to decide between this mod and the "AI plus" mod. I'm sure they are both very good mods that improve the AI, so I guess I'd like to begin with which ever one makes less changes and is closer to vanilla.

What do you suggest? Thanks in advance.

This one! It´s great! I use this one and "[eMOD] Black Market Bazaar - New items" and it totally changed the game. Now its much richer and harder and more fun at the same time.

And thank you for the help Primal_Savage, I will definitely do that! I´m having so much fun right now! I´m home sick and should be resting but what can I say? I´ve got a whole new game compared to the old LH.Froggy did a great job making it so "easy" for you guys to be able to compile these great mods. I like this game, company and all the community surrounding it a lot.

What will be the difference between putting your mod in the English directory as to putting it in the Mods directory? You mention limited resources?

Your instructions are "To install the mod, first backup your English folder, then copy the downloaded files into it. If you don't have DLS's, delete appropriate DLS files. Optionally there is a mod in Mod folder, which allows you to play with limited resources."

The reason I ask is because I´ve gotten some crashes and asked around in the support forum, and I quote

You are at turn 97 which isn't too far in. I would try a new game and play without mods to see if you have the same crashes. Also, do you have the patchwork mod in your steam directory or my documents. It is not recommended you modify the steam files. All mods should be in the the directory located in My Documents/My Games.

Thanks in advance, love the mod and I don´t want to play with limited resources, depending on what that means?

The only thing I don´t like (which is not your fault I think) is that since I set AI difficulty to Hard and above (custom) they all start with a huge amount of just everything. Like 1k+ research, 1k+ metal and crystal. And by the time I´ve founded three cities and started to produce my first soldiers with leather (I usually pick the war branch once I´ve got my cities under control) the AIs are running around with several massive armies.

I wanted to make game Hard on Hard level and it should be so. On Expert the game gives AI more resources - this is hardcoded... at least I didn't find any figures in xml files yet. So I suggest at first to play on Hard level.

I´m having more crashes now then before I installed this mod. So every 2-8 turns I have a crash where the game "hangs" and then has to be closed down.

Thank you for debug file, but I found nothing that leads to the mod's files. Debug file says that there are some media files missing. These are not the mod's files. It consists only of xml files. The mod adds lots of data with new units. Perhaps this may be the problem. I plan to supervise all unit designs and to make optimum numbers.

What will be the difference between putting your mod in the English directory as to putting it in the Mods directory? You mention limited resources?

If you place the mod into mod directory then default resources are loaded first then mod settings override them. If you place files in English directory, then the game immediately loads new files. In v.1.3 (at least) it was impossible to make some changes other than placing files to English folder. So I left these attempts to make a mod for the mod folder. The bad thing is that if you update your game in Steam, you override the mod. Before any update in Steam its recommended to restore original files first then update. And after that install the mod again.

nowar1979, when did you start to encounter chashes? I'm at 32 turn and didn't encounter any crash. I test pure Patchwork mod.

I've never used a mod for LH:FE before and I'm trying to decide between this mod and the "AI plus" mod. I'm sure they are both very good mods that improve the AI, so I guess I'd like to begin with which ever one makes less changes and is closer to vanilla.

What do you suggest? Thanks in advance.

I think that AI Plus mod suits your request better. Although following my descriptions you may install just parts of Patchwork mod.

For example these xml files may just give you some boost in AI:

CoreShards and CoreWorldResourcesCoreDifficultyLevelsTreatiesCoreAIDefsAIMilitaryStrategyTypesCoreUnitStats

If you paste these files into English folder then they should be compatible with AI Plus mod.

I recomment to install at least CoreShards and CoreWorldResources - these files provide comfort tiles for most starting locations. Imho this is a very convenient feature which benefits AI also.

Everybody may consider this pack as light version of the mod. All these files are independent from each other and don't require any other mod or any DLC. Their description is at the head of the topic.

Quoting MechaGodzill, reply 19 I've never used a mod for LH:FE before and I'm trying to decide between this mod and the "AI plus" mod. I'm sure they are both very good mods that improve the AI, so I guess I'd like to begin with which ever one makes less changes and is closer to vanilla.

What do you suggest? Thanks in advance.

I think that AI Plus mod suits your request better. Although following my descriptions you may install just parts of Patchwork mod.

For example these xml files may just give you some boost in AI:

CoreShards and CoreWorldResourcesCoreDifficultyLevelsTreatiesCoreAIDefsAIMilitaryStrategyTypesCoreUnitStats

If you paste these files into English folder then they should be compatible with AI Plus mod.

I recomment to install at least CoreShards and CoreWorldResources - these files provide comfort tiles for most starting locations. Imho this is a very convenient feature which benefits AI also.

Everybody may consider this pack as light version of the mod. All these files are independent from each other and don't require any other mod or any DLC. Their description is at the head of the topic.